Paybis has secured both a MiCA crypto licence and a PSD2 payment institution licence from Latvia’s central bank, becoming the first company in the country to hold both simultaneously. Cryptocurrency platform Paybis has received two licences from Latvia’s central bank, including one for crypto-asset services under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) and another for payment institution operations under Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2). The licences were issued by the Supervision Committee of Latvijas Banka on May 12 to SIA Paybis Europe, the company’s EU entity, according to an announcement from the central bank. Paybis is the third company in Latvia to receive a MiCA CASP licence, the central bank said. The MiCA licence covers custody and administration of crypto assets on behalf of clients, exchange of crypto-assets for funds or other crypto assets, execution of orders, transfer services and crypto asset advisory, Latvijas Banka said. The central bank added that the PSD2 payment...
MiCA’s licensing clarity helped Europe capture crypto flows as US retail activity declined despite a crypto-friendly Trump administration. Europe is pulling ahead in the global crypto race under its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, outpacing even President Donald Trump’s crypto-friendly America. According to Konstantins Vasilenko, co-founder and chief business development officer at Paybis, trading volumes from EU customers jumped 70% quarter-on-quarter in Q1 2025, right after the MiCA regulation took effect. During the same period, Paybis activity in the US started trending in the opposite direction. Vasilenko told Cointelegraph that while US retail activity was declining, European users have been placing larger, more deliberate trades. Read more